sign me: ex-catholic kinkster girl (EKG)

Not that I blame you, that is incredibly early, but still.

Do you really think this? I mean I suppose some fetishes are probably formed by childhood experiences, but do you think that's the case all or even most of the time? I'm turned on by being tied up during sex and I wasn't raised with any religion and I can't think of anything related to that that happened in my childhood. I didn't realize at the time that it was in any way sexual, but in retrospect, I'd been laying in bed imagining helpless scenarios since I was around 9 or 10, maybe earlier. I don't think any particular thing caused this. I wonder, really, what does cause or contribute to that sort of thing. When I reached the age where I made the connection that these were sexual fantasies, that I was turned on by the idea of being tied up, I had a little freakout. I swore to myself I wasn't going to think like that, and I certainly wasn't going to ever tell anyone, because it was sick! I imagine its a little like, on a smaller scale, what teenagers go through when they realize they're gay. So what does cause these... I don't know if its strong enough to be called a fetish, but what causes these desires if it isn't catholic church?

So, wait, he's like the Catholic john Feit?

This is a prime opportunity for someone who has all the correct beliefs and who is extremely well spoken and media savvy to hand it to the right, and it's being tossed aside because it's too early.

Talk about a let down. Please do move to New York.

TOTAL COP OUT!
You rant and rave and yell and scream and bitch and moan against these right-wing zealots. Most of the posts you put here are meant to start a debate with the religious right. Even I will admit that if anyone is sent to debate them, on Fox, it should be you (and I have no doubt you'd agree) and then when you get the opportunity handed to you on a silver platter you blow it off because it's too early in the morning?

This is a prime opportunity for someone who has all the correct beliefs and who is extremely well spoken and media savvy to hand it to the right, and it's being tossed aside because it's too early.

Talk about a let down. Please do move to New York.

But, jeez... Tell me Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton would EVER turn down an opportunity to be on TV, and I have a hard time believing it.

And I feel a little betrayed that the most articulate, media savvy voice on the kink side of this debate wants to sleep in.

And, sorry, but I have to write "Savage Love" today and write a piece for This American Life and interview people for TAL from 11-1 tomorrow, and edit next week's HUMP issue. If I have to get up at 3 in the morning and go to Fox and talk to Bill Donohue, I won't get the rest of this done.

It's a wonderful opportunity. The folks at Fox said they'll book me with Bill another time - and you know damn well there will be another time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI5Mqn4Fr5w

Oh, I agree that BDSM is not an identity, it is not who people are (at least not most people-- I don't hang out with the ones who actually run dungeons or whatever, so I don't know how they feel about it). I personally am into pretty light bondage. I like to read stories about harder stuff but I've only ever had extremely light bondage sex, the kind where the handcuffs accidentally come off because the safety is too easy to use.

Anyway, I agree with you that being gay is a different category than various kinks like that, but I also sort of thing that's besides the point. I think most rational people at this point agree that being gay is something hardwired into a person before they hit puberty, whether it is because of genetics, chemicals in the womb, whatever. Its not something they choose and its not decided by what TV they watch or their relationship with their parents.

But I don't think that implies anything one way or the other about the causes of other "kinks." I don't know if a liking for bondage is hardwired into a person, is caused by childhood experiences, is a choice, or what. I'm not aware of any research done on the subject. Is there any you can point to? It seems like people haven't really thought about it as much as they have thought about the causes of homosexuality.

I enjoy fantasizing about bondage-- that is definitely not my "identity." Its different than being gay, for sure. But I still wonder what caused it. Its not something I would have sat down and chosen-- I'm ok with it now but it freaked me out quite a bit when I was younger and I started to realize that people actually DID things like that.

Oh, and part of the reason I lost my job as a Catholic youth minister was that I refused to saction a group outing to see Mel Gibson's gore fest masquerading as a religious movie. I didn't believe that those graphic images would help make the story of Christ any more realistic, and I refused to give any money to that whole enterprise.

I'm no longer Catholic, by the way. I still consider myself Christian, though one who believes that God created sex to be a good thing, and one who isn't afraid of a little kink every now and then.

We'd love to have Dan in New York, he's always welcome.

Your analysis of Catholicism equating sin with sexual acts is spot on. I spent the first 18 years of my life having Catholicism beaten into me by a succession of nuns, priests and brothers and have spent the last 30-some years trying to flush it all out of my system.

Today I'm an almost-well-adjusted M2F crossdresser who loves(among other things) to dress up in my Catholic school girl uniform.

And if Mistress Matisse would like to stop over, slip into my nun's habit, and give me the proper paddling I deserve, that'd be ok, too.

Judaism is a perfect religion of truth and light, and all Jews are divine sparks of celestial light for our dark world. BDSM is allowed in Halaka, especially for the goyim. Pretty much the goyim are allowed all there perversions. Only observant Jews are held to a higher standard because Jews are capable of more morality than goyim.

Did you celebrate Yom Kippur anywhere Dan?

All I was saying is that you're the journalist here. I don't read The Stranger so I can go out and investigate leads; I have my own work to do. We readers rely on you to get the news to us and then editorialize, not the other way around. That would be irresponsible, right?

I actually enjoyed something that Dan Savage wrote!

Oh, wait, I liked that joke he told about the flowers and the vase too.

Two for Two, Dan!

Am I the only reader of this post to know this?

Catholicism played a large part in my upbringing, and, let's face it, being innundated with talk of sin and sex and pain makes for some interesting fantasies during our formative years. For heaven's sake (pun entirely intended, and completely reveled in) we spend half of mass on our knees! That's some serious conditioning, right there.